Tom Arnold, Alec Baldwin and a noted author come to the rescue of small Iowa libraries

Amber Rowley, director of the Linden public library in central Iowa, explains how donations will help update the aging collection and facilities there.
Mike Kilen, mkilen@dmreg.com

Tammy Deal, Amber Rowley and Rene Smith, left to right, were astounded by the outpouring of donated books after the plight of the Linden Public Library was was shared on social media.(Photo: Mike Kilen)

LINDEN, Ia. — The small public libraries in the tiny towns of Linden and Bagley are about all that’s left in town. There’s no grocery store, no convenience store, no café. When kids get out of school and have nowhere to go, they go to the library.

The librarians, who make around minimum wage, keep a stash of snacks for them, bought out of their own pocket or with help from a local church.

“We have a lot of kids that come in hungry. I don’t like to hear tummies rumble in children,” said Jeannie Solorzano, the Bagley Public Library director.

Books and crafts help entertain the kids, but they are also hard to come by, especially on an annual budget that is around $10,000 in Linden. Librarian Amber Rowley ends up scouring used book sales or looking for publishers who offer free shipping. Some of the books are more than 30 years old.

Then their story got out on social media. Hundreds of people across the county, a couple Hollywood celebrities and a best-selling author joined in to help. Everything changed.

The two little libraries in Iowa started to receive boxes of books and money from across the country this week, not only filling their shelves with new books but lighting a fire in the two towns just 45 minutes west of Des Moines.

It all started earlier this summer when Tammy Deal, a local volunteer, was at a book signing event in Stillwater, Minnesota, standing in line to get an autograph from J. Courtney Sullivan, whose 2017 book “Saints For All Occasions” was a best-seller, a Washington Post top 10 book of the year and a New York Times critics pick.

She asked Sullivan to sign it to the Linden Public Library. They got to talking. Sullivan is from Boston but her husband is originally from Des Moines. Deal told her that the library was run on a shoestring but was vital for the mental and physical nourishment of rural children.

While the towns don’t have a high poverty rate relative to other Census tracts in Iowa, there is a poverty of services and an after-school void left by adults commuting to jobs out of town.

“So many of us have a connection to our childhood libraries. That’s where our love affair with books began,” Sullivan said. “That is where I’ve done a lot of my reading throughout life.”

Sullivan left the event that day and immediately contacted publishing friends, asking them to send books to the little libraries. Last week, she tweeted a message to her 8,714 followers, telling them about the heroic librarians working with little to feed and nurture readers.

For everyone wanting to help the libraries in rural Iowa: 1. Thank you, I love you. 2. We have a Go Fund Me page! Donations will go toward books, food for hungry kids, repairs etc. All of which the librarians have been paying for themselves until now. https://t.co/CC0FgwAQ3m

“The tweet exploded. Hundreds of people replied,” Sullivan said. “Then the same night (Iowa native actor) Tom Arnold replied, ‘Where can I send the books?’ And thousands more shared his retweet.”

Solorzano was at the Bagley library when a call came in earlier this week.

“Do you have a few minutes?” the caller asked. “I’d like to connect you to Alec Baldwin.”

He donated $5,000 through the Hilaria & Alec Baldwin Foundation.

Not a typical week at the Bagley library.

Boxes of books started flooding in. Two hundred came to Bagley by midweek, but that first box was the most special.

“I sat and cried,” Solorzano said. “I am passionate about this library and about the people that come to this library. This library is all we have in our town.”

A child draws how he feels about the Linden Public Library.(Photo: Mike Kilen)

By Thursday, 270 books had come in to the Linden library, a very tiny place now filled with boxes. The library shares space with the volunteer fire department and the city hall in the back, where a small conference table is surrounded by trophies from schools that have closed. The library is lined with class photos dating back decades, overlooking a space with only two long rows of books and materials crammed in every nook and cranny and a portable air conditioning unit trying to cool the space.

Librarian Amber Rowley was astounded to find books from publishers with release dates of September and October. Brand-new hardback books! She found boxes from people with personal notes about their childhood love of the town library and signatures such as “Best wishes from Ohio” or “library love.”

“It’s like Christmas,” Rowley said.

“It’s like getting hugged,” added Deal.

A group of young readers was excited to paw through the new books donated to Linden Public Library.(Photo: Mike Kilen)

A GoFundMe page was set up, led by Rene Smith, the town’s expert in fundraising, and by Thursday it had nearly $6,000. The nearby Panora library, though better funded, was added to the need because large print and audio books it needs are expensive.

The Linden library, which uses handwritten notes on a clipboard to check out books, has a budget of roughly $10,000, according to State Library of Iowa records.

“They don’t have much. The average for towns that size is $25,000,” said Mike Wright, the Iowa Library Association president. “Most of those little libraries run on very little.”

The library is important here, where the 60 or 70 kids are far from a bigger town and have few places to go after school. The librarians keep them busy with crafts and reading programs — and filled with an after-school snack.

“The library raised the education level of the kids in the community,” said Alecia Lleshi, a mother of three pre-teens. “It gives them confidence.”

It will help put new books in the hands of not only children but also a senior population that makes up a large part of rural Iowa. After all the old materials are weeded out, such as 30-year-old books, outdated encyclopedias and even VHS tapes, new books will be stocked.

The outpouring of support did more: It energized this small town.

“It reignited a flame that was dying out,” said Rowley.

Plans ramped up to use the momentum to eventually build a new library across the street.

A town library, these women say, is not just a place for books. It’s where seniors come to find out who is ill, where community news is shared and where children learn to dream.

“The kind of community that forms around the love of reading is so powerful,” said Sullivan, the author.